State of being. State of mind.

Nha Trang – Resort Town

After six weeks of gallivanting around Vietnam with me, my friend had to go. So for her last week she wanted to relax resort style. Good thing we had arrived in Nha Trang. This is the resort town of Vietnam. A Vietnamese Pattaya or Miami if you will. Ok so it’s a resort town and a den of debauchery. It was a week of splurges and relaxation as I bid my friend farewell.

Having no idea how long she could stay, we got to her most important item first. She went diving and I went snorkeling. I have some rather poor inner ear balance and it means I’m very prone to being seasick. However this time I managed to survive the boat ride, only to become sick from the waves as I was snorkeling. I guess I’ll take learning to dive off of my list of things to do. The coral and fish were still beautiful, I just had to grab onto some rocks at some point and get ill.

Hello fishy!

I then set out to do some volunteer stuff that I blogged about here. Inbetween hugging adorable children we went to a mud bath and mineral spring. I’ve only had bizarre hot springs incidents in Asia otherwise and I’ve never had a mud bath. For a mere few bucks this was definitely a fun and relaxing experience. People in Asia don’t like to tan though, so we were the only people in the sunning area letting our mud dry and cake on. I wish I had pictures but was afraid to get soft silty mud into my camera. If only I could share the heart shaped tubs and car wash like pressure showers that were all outside. There was also a “zacuzzi”, a warm and a cool pool and some waterfalls to sit under. Definitely worth a day trip in Nha Trang.

We went to the seaside water park and amusement park. There is a fancy expensive new amusement park on its own island, but we went for the cheaper (by a factor of 10!) one on land. We didn’t really try much at the boardwalk like amusement park. They told us we were too big to get in the bounce house after I spent a few minutes trying to motion jumping up and down to communicate this fact. The water park was more of a success. I had never been to one before, likely due to my inability to swim. We had fun racing down the rather short by American standard slides. However there were no lines either so we got to do a lot more than usual. The wave pool was turned off, so we just had a personal pool instead. Near the end of the day we found a zip line that dropped into the pool. This is more fun than it sounds as the thing was really slippery! This is when my friend figured out I really couldn’t swim and she had to drag me out of the pool. Whoops, I guess my lack of fear of water is pretty confusing.

I spent a lot of the rest of the time with my friend just hanging out on the beach or wandering around. I was particularly impressed with the man riding a motorbike who balanced a whole tray of donuts he tried to sell us on his fedora.

Vendors wander up and down the beach selling peanuts, chips, cigarettes, things in banana leaves, and soft tofu desserts. I didn’t even look at the ones with sunglasses and books. This picture is showing in the evening, when vendors set up grilling stations for fresh seafood.

I think I have mentioned before that the Vietnamese don’t like the sun. This means they are only on the beach early at dawn and in the evening.

I had a bit of an oasis around me because there was no shade where I was. What a difference a continent makes, from sun lovers to sun haters.

Once my friend left I returned to my regularly scheduled activities of wandering around a lot. Going to the Oceanography Museum was a good excuse to go across town on the beach. It was aquarium like and had large rooms full of dubiously real bones or jars full of preserved sea critters. Good pictures were certainly easier to get here than they were snorkeling.

I found Nemo! He was hiding behind this fluffy pink thing.

I’m convinced no alien could look weirder than the things in the ocean.

You know you are in Asia when placards for fish say things like “This fish is very tasty”.

I don’t know why they had multiple trashy pictures of mermaids.

Why stick to weirdly sexual paintings of mermaids when you can have creepy statues as well. Why does she have a butt above her tail?! Pull up your fish parts, lady, this isn’t a jail!

I also found out there is a Cham temple. I’m a little confused because it looked partially Buddhist now but perhaps I just don’t understand the Cham culture.

It’s not Angkor Wat, but does everything need to be? It is beautiful and I wish I saw it before the restoration.

The temple is on a hill overlooking the river and city. It would be so peaceful if not for the throngs of tourists. I advise going early.

As you can see in the last picture this isn’t the smallest town. On the upside the number 4 bus goes to the Cham temple and Oceanography Museum for anyone who doesn’t want to hike that far. I’m off to a quieter beach next. I have enjoyed doing some more vacation like activities but I definitely need some downtime and I’m sure my wallet could use it too.